February 14, 2018

Giant Anthem 29er 2 review

Lows: Some flex in the frame, 27.2mm seatpost limits choice of droppers

Buy if: You're in the market for an unapologetic XC racer

When
27.5-inch wheels hit the market, Giant went all in, and the brand was
outspoken that the handling characteristics of smaller wheels far
outweighed the benefits of bigger hoops.

As things do, 29-inch wheels and approaches to geometry have come quite a long way in recent years and have inspired a clear change of tune for Giant's 2018 Anthem.

Up to last year’s version of the Anthem, Giant’s XC
racer was increasingly encroaching on the territory of a short travel
trail bike, with 120mm of travel up front, 110mm at the back and a slack
68-degree head angle. The 2018 version of the bike demonstrates its
return as an unapologetic XC rocket.

Giant Anthem 29er 2 highlights

ALUXX SL-Grade aluminium frame

90mm rear travel, 100mm front travel

780mm bars

Shimano SLX drivetrain

£2,449 / $TBC / AU$3,499

Quality not quantity

For
2018, Giant has reigned in the front travel to 100mm and further
reduced the rear to 90mm, opting for a metric Trunnion mount shock. I
don’t think I can name another XC frame that boasts less than 100mm of
rear travel, but according to Giant the slightly reduced squish
prioritises quality over quantity.
Giant says that in testing
other XC bikes on the market with 100mm rear suspension, the short shock
stroke, low air volume and high leverage ratio resulted in the need to
run high air pressures and diminished suspension performance.

Giant reduced the rear travel to 90mm, aiming for quality over quantity

High shock pressure can make it difficult to utilise the full travel
and leaves you with only a few clicks of substantive rebound adjustment,
where low pressure may allow for full travel but also bring plenty of
wasted watts.
So by moving to a longer shock stroke and 90mm of
rear travel Giant says it was able to lower the leverage ratio, allowing
for reduced shock pressure and a wider range of usable rebound.
It
took me a bit of time to dial in the air pressure and rebound, and I
opted to run the rear shock at 25 percent sag. At this pressure the
shock was supportive, sitting in that perfect pedalling sweet spot
without dipping too deep into the travel or bobbing.

The Fox 32 at the front still has 100mm of squish

At the front, the Fox Float 32 with the cutaway Step Cast lowers
makes it one of the lightest forks for the money, oh and it’s pretty
smooth and well damped too. Overall, the bike felt like it was gliding
over the rough stuff without shaking your eyeballs loose from their
sockets, all while still allowing you to churn away to keep the watts
coming.
With this feathery nature of the Float 32, the fork also
comes with a bit of flex, which is accentuated by the flex in the frame
and wheels, and highlighted further by oodles of leverage on offer with
the 780mm riser bars — something that may be more of an issue for
heavier riders.

It's not common yet to see 780mm bars on an XC bike straight out of the box

Speaking of the bars, I can hear the audible scoff coming from our XC
inclined readers who read the number 780mm at the bars and think solely
of tree clearance and start line entanglements — we’d encourage you to
try before you chop. In combination with the 80mm stem, the Anthem 29er feels balanced and the added leverage allows you to push the limits of traction and makes high-speed bermed corners a hoot.
Both
the front and rear shock have lockouts, but there is no bar mounted
remote specced on the Anthem 29er 2, and I can’t say it’s a feature I
really messed with other than on tarmac transition sections — even when
there is a remote on offer I hardly use it.

Slack for an XC bike

I'm not totally sold on the 27.2in seatpost given the limited dropper compatibility

With the compact but not too short 438mm chainstays, the new Anthem
sees a slack, for an XC bike, 69-degree head angle, 610mm head tube and
conservative 73.5 degree seat angle that makes for a reach of 437mm in
my size medium tester.
With this, the first thing I noticed about
the bike was how flickable the rear end felt. Quite often in the search
for a compact rear end, if the chainstays are too short the front end
gets a bit light while climbing and the bike will lack stability as
well.

Giant says the rocker on the new Anthem is stronger and stiffer than its predecessor

The Anthem 29, however, does not suffer from these afflictions,
thanks in part to the relatively low 585mm stack and 330mm bottom
bracket height. It's confidence inspiring on descents and I immediately
felt at home ripping into corners at speed and hitting jumps and drops.
The geometry puts you in an aggressive position and the bike wants to go
fast.
Clicking through the Shimano
SLX drivetrain there is plenty of range with the 11-46t cassette and
32t narrow/wide chainring at the front. The shifting action is light and
the components wear well, although the jump from the 37t to the 46t
granny gear at the back is a cadence killer.

The hubs on the Giant XC-1 29 wheelset look pretty nifty

Giant uses its own XC-1 29 wheelset on the Anthem 29er 2, and with a
21mm inner they combine well with the Maxxis IKON 2.2-inch rubber. There
is no doubt this tire
choice is solely for speed, and they roll along with minimal
resistance, but weighting the tires into a corner takes a degree of
finesse, that is if you’d like to stay on the trail.
To Giant’s
credit, it is one of the few brands offering truly tubeless-ready wheels
out of the box, meaning the wheels come with rim strips and valves
installed — two single-serving bottles of sealant are even included in
the box

The head tube is a stumpy 95mm in a size medium

Stopping is taken care of by Shimano’s BR-MT500 non-series brakes,
and in a rare move for an XC bike there is a 180mm rotor on the front.
There is good power and adequate modulation, but not quite the same as
you get with slightly pricier models.
The cable routing is clean
with no cable rub at the front, and there is even routing to run an
internal dropper, although the 27.2mm seatpost seriously limits your
options.
With a full alloy frame, my size medium tips the scales
at 12.18kg / 26.8lb. It’s not the double-take worthy 10.2kg / 22.5lb of
the top end Eagle-equipped Advance Pro 29 0, but it’s respectable.

The 46-11t doesn't quite offer the bailout 50t gear of its SRAM counterpart but there is still plenty of range on offer

Giant Anthem 29er 2 overall

After spending some quality time
with the Anthem 29er, it’s clear that Giant has returned the Anthem to
is unapologetic racing roots. The handling is precise and that flickable
rear end still tracks well through tight uphill corners, but when the
trail points down it's a confident descender too. Gone are the days of
the sweaty palms, white-knuckle, steep-angled XC bikes.

An SLX derailleur navigates the gears at the back

Even with the reduced rear travel, the bike feels balanced and the
wheels glide through the chop allowing you to keep the power down. Once
you start hitting the bigger stuff you’ll quickly find the limits of the
travel, but as one tester noted, it’s usually about the same time you
wish you had a dropper.
There is a bit of end to end flex in the
frame, fork and wheels but that doesn’t detract from the speed. The
updated geometry and choice of components make for an XC racer that is a
hoot to ride.

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